EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Myanmar is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and, as such, must fulfill its obligations to ensure both de jure and de facto equality for women. Yet, despite these obligations, women and girls across Myanmar face serious obstacles to realizing their rights to substantive equality and non-discrimination. In this Report, the Gender Equality Network (GEN) and Global Justice Center (GJC) highlight multiple barriers facing women and girls in Myanmar and offer key areas where reforms are necessary in order to promote women’s rights and the equal enjoyment of freedoms. This report can be read as a baseline of the situation on key indicators that affect the situation of women and girls in Myanmar, and therefore offers a starting point for dialogue with the newly elected government. The goal of such dialogue is to jointly tackle the systemic hurdles that impede the achievement of women’s equality and reverse some of the repressions under previous regimes. This report highlights general inequalities and discrimination faced by all women in Myanmar, but it must be noted that certain marginalized groups, such as ethnic women, rural women and older women, are not specifically discussed herein, but nonetheless experience additional and intersecting forms of discrimination.
